Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Ring Video Doorbell

My father has Parkinson's and is very nearly bedridden. In order to make life easier for him, my mother purchased a Ring video doorbell so that he can see who is at the door and converse with them via his phone or laptop. He'd like to eventually get to the point where he could touch a button and unlock the door, but first thing's first.

Mom bought the Ring video doorbell without consulting me. Had I been informed of the decision prior to her purchase, I would have recommended the Nest Hello. Yet, part of any good challenge is to see how one can make do with what one has been provided with. Mom has had issues getting Ring to work reliably with my dad's phone, so, as the family tech expert my Smart Home skills were put to work this Christmas with the goal of getting the Ring video doorbell working. I got it working, it just took an age.

The big thing that the Ring video doorbell has going for it is that you don't need to hook it in to an existing doorbell wire in order for it to operate. Ring can run on its own battery. That's a very attractive feature for folks like me who have houses without wired doorbells. The thing is, my parents' house has the necessary wiring. I don't know why their electrician elected not to use it. I can't imagine my mother would be too happy having to remember to recharge the Ring every-other-day.

Setup isn't all that difficult. You connect Ring to your wireless network, register for an account, confirm your registration, download the app to your phone or computer and then sign in. Easy enough, except the Ring kept having issues either talking to my father's phone or connecting to the wireless network (despite a very strong signal). Still, it's not the setup that I have an issue with so much as Ring's overall performance. On my father's near-premium phone, Ring is slow to respond to commands and incredibly slow to show the video feed. This, I'm sorry to say, is unacceptable with my father's condition. He needs something more peppy.

Myself, I'm so unimpressed with the Ring that I have actually contacted and electrician to run a wire to my doorway so that I can install a Nest Hello.

1 comment:

We got a video door bell for our home as well. Fortunately, it was Nest Hello bought at electrical-showroom.co.uk. It was expensive original but when we used the Electrical Showroom Discount Codes, the price became quite reasonable.